Politics

Trump: ICE Will Remove Millions Of Illegal Immigrants From U.S.

JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

Amber Athey Podcast Columnist
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President Donald Trump said Monday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will begin mass deportations of illegal immigrants starting next week.

The president indicated that ICE intends on attempting to remove the millions of illegal immigrants currently residing in the U.S. According to a Pew Research Center study released last week, 10.5 million “unauthorized” immigrants lived in the U.S. in 2017.

“Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States,” Trump tweeted late Monday night. “They will be removed as fast as they come in.”

Trump also touted his new partnership with Mexico to help curb Central American migrants making their way to the U.S.-Mexico border. Mexico, in an attempt to prevent the U.S. from placing a 5% tariff on all of its exports, said they will deploy 6,000 National Guard troops to the Mexico-Guatemala border and will allow more asylum seekers to stay in Mexico. (RELATED: Mexico Releases The Details Of Its Immigration Plan With The US)

The president has reportedly been planning to ramp up deportations for some time. Immigration officials who spoke to The Washington Post in May said former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief Kirstjen Nielsen may have been ousted partially because of her opposition to such a plan.

“There was concern that it was being hastily put together, would be ineffective and might actually backfire by misdirecting resources away from critical border emergency response operations,” one DHS official said of the plan to target adult and child migrants for removal.

Nonetheless, multiple senior administration officials told The Daily Caller last month that the president was still planning on removing illegal immigrants from the U.S., and may even use the powers of the Insurrection Act to do so.

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